"Jules Verne - Underground City, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

imparts to his readers, the scientific probabilities of the universe beyond
our earth, the actual knowledge so hard won by our astronomers! Other
authors who, since Verne, have told of trips through the planetary and
stellar universe have given free rein to fancy, to dreams of what might be
found. Verne has endeavored to impart only what is known to exist.

In the same year with "Off on a Comet," 1877, was published also the
tale variously named and translated as "The Black Indies," "The Underground
City," and "The Child of the Cavern." This story, like "Round the World in
Eighty Days" was first issued in "feuilleton" by the noted Paris newspaper
"Le Temps." Its success did not equal that of its predecessor in this
style. Some critics indeed have pointed to this work as marking the
beginning of a decline in the author's power of awaking interest. Many of
his best works were, however, still to follow. And, as regards imagination
and the elements of mystery and awe, surely in the "Underground City" with
its cavern world, its secret, undiscoverable, unrelenting foe, the
"Harfang," bird of evil omen, and the "fire maidens" of the ruined castle,
surely with all these "imagination" is anything but lacking.

From the realistic side, the work is painstaking and exact as all the
author's works. The sketches of mines and miners, their courage and their
dangers, their lives and their hopes, are carefully studied. So also is the
emotional aspect of the deeps under ground, the blackness, the endless
wandering passages, the silence, and the awe.

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The Underground City

OR

The Black Indies
(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)

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Page 279

Chapter 1

The Underground City
CHAPTER I
CONTRADICTORY LETTERS

To Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer,

30 Canongate, Edinburgh.

IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines,
Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature will be